Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Business as usual

While the Tory "eurosceptics" and the various front organizations that are determined to fudge the questions of how exactly we are to come out of the EU and what are we to do afterwards are celebrating the fact that the latest opinion polls show a tiny swing towards those who want to come out without really knowing what that entails, the EU is engaged in business as usual. Here are the documents on the latest CFP reform proposals. I suspect they do not paint as happy a picture as the media has been predicting for days but it will take me a little time to read and digest them.

Here is another smug little blog from the Freedom Association that sums up all those wonderful results, forgetting that the Conservative Party had better opinion polls for quite a long part of the campaign and those of us who said that is not good enough turned out to be right.

5 comments:

Basically I support them but every now and then they seem to get overwhelmed with the general hysteria of other organizations. Also, their bloggers write with little knowledge or research. Knowledge is something to be acquired and the youngsters they have writing the blog do not have it to start with. Fair enough. But they don't bother to find out or read other outlets. That I object to.

I think those are very fair points. I am a member/supporter of The Freedom Association, but think, as you allude to, they are somewhat amateurish in their approach. Hopefully this will improve in the future. Out of interest, is your opinion of the TFA shared by others you know? I've been following all that you and Richard North have said about linked up thinking and organisation by the 'eurosceptic' right, rather than different groups constantly running similar campaigns in parallel. This seems to be the case with the Better Off Out campaign.

The Freedom Association is about more than just euroscepticism and, therefore, has a good deal of support I think, always allowing for people criticizing what you have noted: a certain not always endearing amateurism in their activity. As for the other eurosceptic or faux eurosceptic organizations, I am not sure it is a case of joined up thinking so much as logical thinking altogether. The notion of one big organization is completely wrong and I have been arguing against it since the mid-nineties. The problem is that some of the organizations have no clear idea of what they want to do and, of course, while we don't want one large organization, co-operation is important. Not all recognize this. Co-operation, incidentally, does not mean falling in with whatever latest crazy idea or campaign being foisted on everyone. Too often we have seen someone jumping up and saying "well, something needs to be done and I/we am/are doing it and you had better fall in and not splinter the movement". Then everyone falls in reluctantly and wastes a lot of time, money and energy on something everyone knows will fail. I have now decided not to fall for that blackmail any more. Hence my constant row with the referendum campaigns who also "want to do something". Doing the wrong thing is worse than doing nothing if nothing is to be done.

Indeed, we have seen how the Tory party (and now its varying groups such as the Taxpayer's Alliance) as one large organisations has starved the 'right' of oxygen and money - sending people down a blind alley with nothing to show for it at the end. As for having no clear ideas or goals, then that is also very true. So many people seem to see leaving the EU (for example) as the end itself rather than the means to an end.